He said Bendigo’s affordable house prices and strong tenancy rates had led to a spike in the number of people buying investment properties.

“It’s absolutely an attractive place to invest at the moment,” he said.

“We’ve got a lot of buyers from Perth, Queensland, interstate, and overseas from Malaysia, China, India.”

Mr Goggin said people working in the mining industry were drawn to invest in the area, with strong returns expected over the next few years.

“For the 24 years we’ve operated as real estate agents in Bendigo, 18 of those years have been pretty steady, then the last six have been just rapid growth... It’s catching up to Melbourne and Geelong. I expect it will continue in that manner.”

Another factor driving growth in Bendigo was people making the move from Melbourne looking for a regional lifestyle, Mr Goggin said.

“About 25 to 30 per cent of people at our open houses are up from Melbourne.

“I think there’s a bit of a compounding effect, people coming for a visit for a weekend then deciding to move up to Bendigo as well.”

Mr Goggin said the company was looking forward to reaching the market in Melbourne and interstate through domain.com.au and the Bendigo Advertiser’s Domain supplement (published today).

He said the agency was excited about the chance to partner with the Bendigo Advertiser to continue to provide in-depth information to potential buyers.

Bendigo Advertiser general manager Margot Falconer said she was delighted to welcome Luke Goggin Real Estate to the paper’s already established Domain product and looked forward to future success for his company and the other agents partnering with the newspaper.